Aubrey Beardsley

1872-1898. British illustrator and writer. Famous illustrations of Oscar Wilde's Salome (1894).

During his short career Aubrey Beardsley was heavily criticised by the press. „Beardsley`s grotesque figues revealed the late-Victorians` hypocrisy. Reviewers carped about these deformations of the body, often ascribing them to Beardsley`s flirtation with the Japanese who were culturally inferior and therefore impervious to change. Japanese woodbloc prints offended the British for the same reasons, formal structure and treatment of the subject matter” (Zatlin, 22). Especially his illustrations for Wilde's Salomé were seen as too sexual and offensive, therefore some of his initial illustrations had to be replaced.

Source:

• Zatlin, Linda Gertner. Beardsley, Japonisme and the perversion of the Victorian ideal. Cambridge: CUP, 1997.